Nearly New Rotors and Brake Pulsation

Probably rust buildup from not much use. That said, I have not seen good luck with that particular brand either. Rears look ugly too. If not drove much the hard use of the brakes a few times once a month will greatly reduce the rust buildup. You will never use them hard enough to hurt them. 99% of brake issues I see are rust, not hard use. .....not sure where u are but from rust on back pics, it will be a problem.
 
Alright, so continuing this saga..

I did the rears yesterday. Once again, it was a pretty straight-forward job.

I'd done them a few years ago. In fact, I know I did them in 2018...had a bit of a mix up at Autozone when I returned the retraction tool yesterday(I'll never again do rear brakes without using one, since I've spent 30 minutes fighting with them on other cars and the tool makes it a 5 minute job) and they could only pull up where I'd borrowed in in 2018 and not the one from last week.

In any case, the 2018 job was prompted when I was on the interstate one day, stopped to take a gas/bathroom break, and heard an awful scraping from the back of the car. I looked and sure enough the R-R rotor looked like someone had chucked it into a lathe but didn't know what they were doing and used a bad cutter. I was driving to my then-girlfriend(now wife's) house and when I got there, found the R-R pads down to metal. It was ugly, but I did pads and rotors. The caliper SEEMED fine, didn't have much corrosion, and retracted fine, so I cleaned and lubed the sliding pins and called it a day. I was also a bit cash short at the time(I know, bad excuse) and also was short on time and didn't want to deal with the amount of bleeding that usually comes with caliper replacement(even worse excuse). That was ~30K miles ago.

I hadn't really seen any issues since then so called it fixed, but when I pulled them yesterday I found that I had maybe 1/4" on the right pads while the left looked nearly new. So, it's caliper time. Again, excuses, but I needed the car yesterday so didn't get into that.

I'm noticing a slight but definitely there pull to the right, so I'm GOING to do calipers. I can park the car for the next couple of days, or at least drive the MG when needed. At this point, I have 30 or so miles on the new brakes, so I'm not super worried about having damaged/cooked the new pads.

I'm planning on grabbing bracketed calipers just to be safe, but is there any compelling reason to grab Motorcraft on these vs. Autozone?
 
I'm planning on grabbing bracketed calipers just to be safe, but is there any compelling reason to grab Motorcraft on these vs. Autozone?
Quality of reman calipers these days is questionable at best. I would probably build my own or seek used OEM before buying most brands. Motorcraft is probably your best bet if you want "new."
 
Quality of reman calipers these days is questionable at best. I would probably build my own or seek used OEM before buying most brands. Motorcraft is probably your best bet if you want "new."

I'm not opposed to rebuilding, and actually have enjoyed the ones I've done(I've done a few sets of MGB calipers, which are a bit of a different beast not the least of which that they're fixed 2 pot).

I have a couple of concerns, though. One is that I HAVE a sandblaster, but don't have the air supply now to really do much more than occasional intermittent.

The second is that the piston on these is kind of nasty looking. I'm assuming these are plated and seem to have some plating loss. I didn't find any kits that have pistons, although I only did a quick search. I don't like reusing old pistons in rebuilds...
 
Alright, so I poked around Rock Auto a bit.

First of all, pistons are out of stock, so I'm guessing rebuild is out.

Even their Motorcraft branded ones are rebuilt. I'm not sure if I'd get new or rebuilt at the dealer.

With that said, they had two listed as new-one Raybestos and the other AC Delco. I know Raybestos use to be a highly regarded brand, and of course in my mind AC Delco should be about the equivalent of Motorcraft.

I'll call the dealer tomorrow and see if they have new or rebuilt.

Once these are off, just for the heck of it and because I kind of enjoy doing it, I may rebuild the olds once I can get pistons. The new ones didn't have a core charge.

So, at this point, any thoughts on Raybestos vs. Declo for new ones?
 
The reason was complaints about dusting bcs. most BMW customers that lease vehicles are more worried about the looks of the wheels than performance.

You can tell a BMW lease from a buy with 90+ % accuracy by looking at the amount of brake dust on wheels.
 
Alright, so I poked around Rock Auto a bit.

First of all, pistons are out of stock, so I'm guessing rebuild is out.

Even their Motorcraft branded ones are rebuilt. I'm not sure if I'd get new or rebuilt at the dealer.

With that said, they had two listed as new-one Raybestos and the other AC Delco. I know Raybestos use to be a highly regarded brand, and of course in my mind AC Delco should be about the equivalent of Motorcraft.

I'll call the dealer tomorrow and see if they have new or rebuilt.

Once these are off, just for the heck of it and because I kind of enjoy doing it, I may rebuild the olds once I can get pistons. The new ones didn't have a core charge.

So, at this point, any thoughts on Raybestos vs. Declo for new ones?
I see this thread is a little old but Raybestos elements 3 new have been very reliable and holding up well after 3-4 harsh NE winters. Rock just delivered another pair yesterday. Most reman are total crap, if no new is available I do my own but source pistons and seals long before I need them and have spares, everything else get the Raybestos new.
 
I see this thread is a little old but Raybestos elements 3 new have been very reliable and holding up well after 3-4 harsh NE winters. Rock just delivered another pair yesterday. Most reman are total crap, if no new is available I do my own but source pistons and seals long before I need them and have spares, everything else get the Raybestos new.

Thanks. Haven't actually driven the car much and haven't done anything, but I'll get a set of them ordered and hopefully dropped on the car this weekend.
 
I have experienced the same issue (pulsation within 5-10K miles) of a brake job over the last few months. Both instances were with the same brand of aftermarket pads, but was the company's copper-free formula. I think some of these new formulas are not very good and are either leaving excessive pad deposits or wear rotors unevenly. In both situations, the rotor runout was measured prior to install and was
I think you need to try a new pair of rotors and possibly some dealer pads.
Was this for the Akebono ProActs?
 
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